For Better and For Worse
by Loopy777
Summary: It's Zuko and Mai's wedding day, so of course something has to go wrong. The particular nature of the disaster, however, turns out to be something of a surprise - a nasty surprise. (For Maiko Week 2016, updating daily.)
1. Smoke

**Smoke**

Despite all the time Mai had spent amusing herself by imagining the various things that could go wrong with her wedding, she had never once considered the possibility that her would-be husband would go missing.

Leave it to Zuko to find new ways to surprise her.

The day had dawned to an unexpected ceiling of dark clouds and chilly winds, and by the time Mai had finished the traditional procession to the Grand Temple, marching at the head of a parade of female friends that wouldn't have looked out of place at a circus with all the face-paint and even a tumbling acrobat, the rain had started to drizzle. While the rest of the procession joined the increasingly soggy guests in the Grand Courtyard, Mai had been forced to retreat to one of the inner chambers and submit herself to the ministrations of a small army (about enough to occupy Gaoling but not only even half of what would be needed to fully pacify Omashu, and she should know) of servants. Her hair had to be completely redone, and of course all the makeup had to be reapplied.

That was the point where the security commander had arrived and announced that the Fire Lord had disappeared, leaving nothing but a set of formal robes.

At least she found out before being placed into The Dress. The Dress was not a thing that was actually _worn_ so much as carried on her frame up to the Grand Alter at the center of the Grand Courtyard (because a Fire Lord couldn't get hitched near anything that wasn't Grand, of course) in a manner that made Mai think of a charging tank more than a blushing bride. When she first saw The Dress, she had despaired of even being able to carry any of her hidden weapons while sealed away within it, but then she had gotten an idea and threw a pile of her old underwear at Sokka; he in turn produced a strange garment that could hold sixteen razor blades and a short stiletto while also providing the most comfortable chest support she had ever experienced. Mai had been assured by everyone she knew that she would look beautiful in The Dress (which meant that she gave it a 40% likelihood that they were telling the truth), and she had finally agreed to wear it under documented protest. It was well-timed of Zuko to go missing before she began the process of being welded inside of it.

The first thing Mai said in response was, "Did he leave a note?"

"Ah, n- no, my lady," stammered the lanky security commander who had the misfortune of being the one to break the news.

Mai was ashamed at the relief she felt over there being no note this time. She still had the one Zuko had left her on the Day of Black Sun, all those years ago, where he told her he was leaving her for an Avatar (so to speak). Sometimes, when she really wanted an excuse to say the dirtiest words she knew, she'd fish it out of her least favorite sock drawer and read it again.

The security commander, however, did seem to share Mai's relief. "We- we don't know how he could have- could have just- well, disappeared like this! There are so many guards around that we actually caught a squad of foreign state-sponsored elephant mice trying to sneak in after the food!"

Mai just nodded. "Zuko is surprisingly good at Sneaky."

"So, ah, I don't suppose you know of way to, ah, track him down?"

Happily for the commander, Mai could indeed nod an affirmative. "Get me some dry clothes and a hat, and I'll hunt the coward down myself.

The commander blinked. "Ah, that shouldn't be necessary. If you, ah, tell us where to look or something, my forces can, ah-"

"No, they can't." Mai accepted a set of flowing black robes and a set of her knife-holders from one of the more helpful servants. "Not if he doesn't want to be found. At best, you'll get a quick glimpse of him before he disappears again, and you can only hope that none of your guards will get injured trying to detain him." She started arming herself and getting dressed.

The security commander paled at the sight of knives Mai was tying against her skin. "So we do we, ah, do?"

Mai sighed. These idiots always needed everything explained to them. "What we planned when Zuko and I finally decided to get hitched, Commander. We initiate Operation: Smokescreen." She could practically hear everyone's jaw dropping around her. It turned out that sixteen jaws plummeting in unison around her made a kind of shallow whooshing sound. She wondered if she was the first person to hear it.

When the commander managed to get her jaw working again, she said, "But- but then you'll, ah, miss your own wedding!"

"Yes, well." Mai tied her belt, shook herself to make sure nothing sharp and deadly would fall out, and then accepted a wide-brimmed hat from that helpful servant (who was definitely getting a raise once this 'find-my-dirtbag-fiancé' business was resolved). "That's another thing Zuko will have to answer for when I hunt down his nicely-shaped, inconsiderate rear."

* * *

'Operation: Smokescreen' had been developed in case of an assassination attempt or other terrorist attack on the wedding. Fire Lords didn't get married very often, after all, and Zuko's regime specifically was in need of some positive energy amongst the populace, so his marriage to Mai had been developed as a nation-wide celebration. Important people from all over the world were brought in to enjoy the party of the century, allies and rivals and even a few non-violent enemies. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong with the whole shebang, including either of the two main participants being unable to attend. Thus, in case something happened to Zuko and/or Mai, from death itself to an inconvenient case of the rumbly tummy, a pair of body-doubles had been prepared so that something similar to a wedding could still happen.

The Grand Alter was large enough that the audience would never know that they were watching a pair of body-doubles, and the substitutes had even trained to replicate Mai and Zuko's particularly sloppy way of kissing. The attendees could see the show they expected, and the bride and groom could either make everything official in a secret ceremony at their earliest convenience if they were still alive, or else one or more deaths could be announced in a week as the result of a particularly robust honeymoon.

Mai had found a certain perverse thrill in planning a wedding, getting picky about every little detail, when there was such a real chance she wouldn't get to experience it herself. But that had been when she thought the greatest danger was a bombing, not Zuko getting Water Tribe feet.

Before she could see to that particular problem, though, she had other responsibilities. Back when she was a teenager and thought she could subsist on a diet of nothing but fire flakes and desserts, she might have blown her duties off, but now she was a responsible adult who had learned how to be minimally civil with certain people. Protected from the rain by that wide-brimmed hat, it was all too easy to slip unnoticed into the crowd gathering for the wedding.

With the ceremony a mere half an hour away, the Great Temple's Great Courtyard was already full of guests despite the rain. They moved about freely while being chased by servants with umbrellas, dividing their efforts between carrying on conversations and hunting down the really good appetizers. Mai found her own family guarding their seats in the front row: Mother and Tom-Tom (who was a sobbing mess, for some reason) and Uncle and Auntie. They were fumbling about with a pair of umbrellas, trying to figure out how to cover all four of them.

Of course, it had to be Mother who spotted Mai first. Mother had always paid close attention to the way Mai walked, and didn't need to see a face to pick her daughter out of crowd. "Oh, no. What's wrong?"

Mai kept her expression blank as she replied, "We're doing the Smokescreen. The Fire Lord is detained and won't be able to make it back in time."

Tom-Tom immediately stopped his bawling. "So I'm not losing you today!" He threw his entire eight-year-old body against Mai, wrapping his arms around her waist like a vice and pressing his face into her stomach.

She tried pushing him off, already feeling the rain on his own clothes soaking into her own, but he wouldn't budge. "Didn't we have the talk about how I'm still going to be your perpetually annoyed big sister whether or not I'm single?"

Tom-Tom just shifted his head so that his nose was poking her naval through her clothes.

Uncle's reaction was preceded by a low rumble in his chest. "And what is detaining the Fire Lord on this important day?"

Ah, leave it to him to tell that she was hiding something. He could always read her so well. "Business that requires my attention as well. Top secret business that I can't even share with the Warden of the Boiling Rock. Sorry."

Uncle grunted his displeasure, but Auntie Mura slapped his shoulder and nodded to Mai with a smile. "Go, then. It's just as well, with the weather. Weddings that go unkissed by the sun are said to be bad luck."

"Well, I'm certainly a huge believer in supernatural notions that dictate how I should live my life, as you all know." Mai finally succeeded in prying Tom-Tom off of her, and she shoved the kid into Mother's arms. "I'll see you again tomorrow."

That was one notification down. There was two more groups to inform, although she wasn't looking forward to the next one. But she supposed that Zuko's family deserved the the courtesy, no matter how she felt about them. Or him.

* * *

Ursa, Noren (or Ikem or whatever his name was; Mai typically just called him "You"), and Kiyi were huddled in one of the courtyard's corners beneath a single umbrella, keeping a small but noticeable distance from the rest of the gathering. They didn't stand out much from the rest of the guests - just another elegant woman, confident man, and bony pre-teen girl - except for their clothes, which on close inspection might have appeared a bit plainer than expected for the most important event in the Caldera since the whole thing was lit on fire during the last royal power struggle. Certainly, most observers wouldn't have realized that the nice little family was as close to being royalty as people could be without actually being royalty.

Nor would they have realized that this family was the spookiest thing here, even counting the Avatar who lived in an iceberg for a century.

Mai hadn't been present when the discovery was made, but it had turned out that Princess Ursa, wife to Ozai and mother both Zuko and Azula, had implemented her exile from the Capital by going home to her remote peasant village and marrying his childhood sweetheart. Mai would have been perfectly okay with that, except the 'wedding' was less of a wedding and more of a deal with a dangerous Elder Spirit to sell their memories and faces in exchange for new ones. Ursa had become Noriko until Zuko found her years later and asked for his mommy back, at which point she reverted (after some level of drama that Mai didn't care about) but not her husband, and of course Kiyi had been fairly freaked out and sometimes still took on a thousand-pace stare that never failed to freak Mai out in turn.

Mai didn't understand any of it, especially not the part where someone would choose to sell herself to one of those Elder Spirits who in the stories weren't so big on keeping to the meaning of an agreement so much as the tricky wording, so she just avoided her future honor-family as much as possible while pretending to find them delightful.

But now she had to give them the latest batch of bad news. She couldn't approach them with any real stealth, so she settled for keeping her hands at her sides to show that she wasn't carrying any weapons. (Any _visible_ weapons.) It was Kiyi who spotted her first, having a lower angle on her vision and so being able to see under the hat. "Hey, Lady Mai, what are you doing here?"

Ursa and Noren turned, and Mai couldn't miss the way her future mother-by-honor stiffened. "There's something wrong, isn't there?"

Mai forced a pleasant, girlish smile to her face. "Oh, no, Mother, everything is fine. Some matters of state came up that require your son's immediate attention, so we're implementing Operation Smokescreen. It's just as well, with the weather. I wouldn't want to start my life with Zuko risking such bad luck!" She tried to giggle like Ty Lee and hit a tone somewhere between Hallucinating Azula and Sun-Worshipping Serial Killer.

Kiyi groaned. "I was really looking forward to the wedding! I wanted to see you so pretty in your dress!"

The smile was starting to hurt, but Mai endured the pain. "Well, the body double has better hips than me, so it will look even prettier on her. I'm sure you'll love it! Of course, if you'd rather not attend the ceremony, I understand. The palace staff knows to make you as comfortable as possible."

Ursa's eyes were piercing and her brow pinched. "Are you sure everything okay?"

"Of course, Mother." Take a hint already, lady. "If you'll excuse me, I need to oversee some things. Buh-bye!" Mai gave a perky little wave and tried to get away, but Ursa snapped out to grab her arm and hold her in place.

Ursa craned her head so that she could look into Mai's eyes beneath the hat. "Are _you_ okay? You seem… off."

"I'm just ashing dandy," Mai growled, before she could stop herself. A quick pinch at Ursa's wrist loosened the grip and allowed Mai to pull away. "I must be going now. Steal some appetizers before you go, I'm sure you'll love them."

She retreated into the crowd like a coward.

* * *

The last person Mai needed to find was Ty Lee, and the only thing she said to her oldest friend was, "Operation Smokescreen is in effect. If I'm not back by tomorrow, bring the Kyoshi Warriors and try to find out what happened to my body."

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	2. Shadow

**Shadow**

Zuko was starting to realize that he hadn't really thought this 'run away from my wedding' plan through.

Something about that bothered him. He knew that not thinking was a problem he had – people told him about it often enough – but surely he would have given more attention to the matter of his own wedding.

Right?

For one, if he really wanted to make a clean getaway, he probably should have started running the week before, as that was when both the Caldera and Harbor City had started preparing for the festivities. He could have pronounced that all the celebrations had to make the guests wear masks, so that it would be simple to move about unnoticed. He could have granted special docking clearance to a group of smugglers who would be able to get him to the Earth Kingdom. As Fire Lord, he could hav even declared that everyone had to cover their eyes and go, "La, la, la, la…" at a certain hour and minute when he'd be making his escape. He could have at least told his mother that she didn't need to bother showing up for the ceremony since he wasn't going to, either.

It wasn't until he was in one of the meditation chambers of the Grand Temple that he realized he wouldn't be able to go through with getting married. He was supposed to be getting dressed into the traditional robes while pondering the symbolism behind each vestment and imagining how much worse his gorgeous bride would have it with the suit of armor that passed for a wedding dress in these parts. (Zuko was at a loss to explain the logic behind The Dress, as Mai called it, since the idea was supposed to be that it was guarding her dignity until they were officially married, but she was far more capable of defending any dignity she wanted to keep if she could maneuver and access her supply of blades.) Except instead of pondering symbols and imagining Mai standing at the alter all flustered over her ridiculous costume, he was remembering the dream.

It wasn't a good dream.

Zuko had gone to sleep the night before his wedding looking forward to the whole thing, looking forward to finally making the ultimate commitment to Mai and fully joining his life to hers. Over the years, shadows had managed to fall between them (usually his own fault, as everyone like to remind him in the same breath as nothing that he still didn't think things through), but Zuko was more than ready to vow to full commit himself to the woman he loved, and would always love.

But Mai had appeared in his dreams, and it wasn't the sexy kind. She didn't appear as she did now, all grown-up and graceful and scary and hot, but rather as she did when she was a child, all tiny and quiet and awkward. She was kneeling in one of the meditation rooms in the Great Temple, sobbing with such force that her whole body heaved, surrounded by candles but somehow left in a spot of shadow that hid her features. Zuko had asked what was wrong, and when she could fight back the tears enough to answer, she said that she was sad because his face had been burned and the Fire Lord sent him away. Zuko tried to tell her that it was okay, that he would learn from that and eventually return to save the Fire Nation with the Avatar, but she wouldn't listen to him.

She insisted that he was going away forever, that she'd never see him again, and that it was unfair for the Fire Nation to throw its own good people away. "Nothing's fair," she whispered. "I know that now."

In the dream, Zuko had stepped through the candles to go and comfort Mai, but when he got close enough to finally make out her features amidst the shadows, he saw that her face had been burned exactly like his, the skin raw in the same way his had been the first time he look at himself in a mirror after the Agni Kai.

That's when he woke up in a cold sweat, screaming.

He would have put it down to wedding jitters, or maybe a bit of food poisoning, or even Sokka slipping something into his pre-bedtime tea for a laugh, but then Zuko had arrived at the Great Temple to do his meditating-and-dressing thing, and realized he was in the exact same meditation chamber from the dream, a meditation chamber he had never seen before.

He had been a block away from the Temple when he finally came to his senses.

At that point, it was a simple matter of trying to figure out where to hide until this whole 'actually get married to Mai' thing was forgotten. He guessed it might take a few years, but the Fire Nation could make do without a Fire Lord for that long, right? Maybe his sister could be convinced to stop being a crazy evil terrorist and fill in for him. Or the Earth Kingdom could just conquer them on paper for a while. Aang could probably make something like that happen.

Something about those thoughts bothered Zuko, but a voice of comfort and warmth had told him not to worry about, so he didn't.

Escape became his primary concern at that point. The streets were filled with revelers who would recognize his (distinctly scarred) face, so Zuko climbed the nearest opulent mansion and traveled by rooftop until he got out of the Caldera. Soon, he had been able to steal a hooded cloak from the empty house of a noble who had finagled far too many tax breaks and could stand to donate a nice cloak for the use of the crown. (Why so many people owned hooded cloaks, Zuko had no idea. Sometimes, it seemed like everyone in the Capital was equipped for a secret rendezvous, which would certainly explain why his own cloaked midnight excursions never seemed to catch the interest of the street constables.) From there, it had been an easy walk down the volcano slope to Upper Harbor City, and Zuko had met with enough illegal assassins back during his days as a prince to know exactly which of the industrial sectors would be empty today.

And so he had successfully escaped his wedding and found a shadowy work-yard to hide out in.

At some point during his escape, it had started raining. He had been too busy to notice.

That, too, seemed odd. Despite that friendly voice in his head telling him that rain and chill were nothing for humans to worry about, Zuko began to wonder if he was in an entirely healthy frame of mind.

But of course he had to be, the voice cooed. He was just a bit distracted by a vision that made him realize that he would only ever hurt Mai, if he stayed with her. It was perfectly understandable that he would miss things like the rain, his growing hunger, a need to use the bathroom, and the fact that he was planning to abdicate the throne rather than talk to the woman his loved about his fears.

Oh, and talking to himself. He had started talking to himself at some point, mumbling things about how love was just another way of inflicting pain as he flitted from shadow to shadow around the work-yard. But then, there was no else to talk to, was there? Yes, perfectly reasonable. Perfectly logical.

Perfectly sane.

It was also understandable that when one of the shadows got up and approached him, he didn't notice until _after_ he started throwing fire at it that 'it' was a 'she,' and 'she' was Mai.

But that was okay, too, the voice said as the fire sizzled through the rain at the woman he loved.

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	3. Light

**Light**

When Zuko leaped out of the darkness and threw a fireball at Mai, it just made her want to marry him even more. It wasn't that she was into that type of thing (ew), but merely so that she'd have the authority to go make him sleep on the couch for a decade or two.

"Hey," she squeaked as she dodged and held onto her hat, "knock it off, it's _me!_ " She didn't have to jump too far, as Zuko's flames were weak and sputtering in the steadily pouring rain. "Or at least come at me like you respect my ability to make you bleed!"

Fortunately for the various bits of Zuko's anatomy where she was considering one of her blades, he came to a stop and stood blinking in the downpour like a particularly large and dim turtleduck. "Mai?"

"Yes!"

"What are you doing here?"

Seriously? She put her hands on her hips and gave him her best 'there is going to be so much suffering for this later' glare. "If you want to know how I found you, it's because I've been aware of this being one of your Secret Places ever since your assassin-hiring days." She left out that she had followed him to make sure he wasn't stepping out to see another girl, an unlikely scenario to be sure but Ty Lee insisted it was a thing even the dorkiest boys did. "And if you want to know why I came looking for you, then maybe (just maybe!) it has something to do with us getting married today."

Zuko began walking slowly, moving in a slow circle around her with hard steps that splashed through the puddles. It was a little unnerving, especially when he said in confused voice, "That doesn't make any sense. You were in the dream; you can't the here, too."

"Dream?"

"The dream!" He came to sudden stop in front of her, and leaned forward with wide eyes, sending drops of water splashing onto her. "You had a scar, a scar just like mine! And I put there because I left and it made you give up on everything!"

Mai wasn't sure which scared her more: Zuko's weird behavior or this supposed dream that had somehow summarized one of her dearest secrets in the most trite symbolism imaginable. "Zuko, just- just calm down. Yes, I guess you could say that your banishment… disillusioned me. Yeah. But we were both hurt by the way we were raised, what with all the war and the child abuse and the training to be the among the greatest warriors alive and stuff, but we've found each other again! And broken up, and found each other again, and broken up, and found each other, and… I'm sorry but I've lost count of whether there were any more. But the point is that we're supposed to be getting married. Now, come on. Let's get out of this creepy place and go home. We'll dry off, I'll yet at you some more, and then you can explain to your mother when we'll really be getting married."

Zuko's gaze lost its focus, and he nodded at the nothing he was staring at. "Yes, I understand. I've hurt Mai in the past, and marrying her would just hurt her more-"

"I'm Mai," she interrupted, "and I think I get a choice about whether or not I want to marry you!"

"-so to save the Mai in the dream, I have to destroy this Mai that's trying to marry me now!" He nodded again as if anything he just said made a single lick of sense.

"Zuko-" But before she could come up with anything to say, he was snapping a fist out and making fire fly towards her face again.

As Mai threw herself into a dodge that left her skidding across the soaking wet floor, she thought she heard laughter echoing through the work-yard. It wasn't Zuko's precise, staccato style of laughing that always sounded fake, and Mai herself certainly wasn't doing that dry little giggle she sometimes couldn't suppress and made people wonder if she was having trouble breathing. And then there was the way the sound was making her teeth tingle, and a glimpse around the workd-yard showed that the shadows were kind of twisting themselves to form a monstrous face.

Well, ash.

Maybe the Avatar would sense that something was wrong and fly down from the Caldera to magically fix everything for her?

* * *

Aang squinted through the rain to watch two people that he was fairly sure where Zuko and Mai approach each other on the alter at the center of the Great Temple's Great Courtyard. "Makes you think," he said to the girl next to him, "doesn't it?"

Katara giggled and held his hand.

* * *

Okay, so how did one - for a given 'one' like a woman named Mai who didn't believe in auras and always got bored with any strategy that didn't involve stabbing people - fight a malicious spirit? Or free one's would-be husband from possession, at least?

And then an idea burst into Mai's head like a light in the darkness.

Ah, so that was what strategy felt like!

When Zuko kicked another fireball at her, she avoided it by throwing herself into a roll forward, losing her hat and getting her clothes and hair and everything all filthy and soggy. She came out of the roll just a hand-span from him, but she had seen him fight so many times that she was already sidestepping the flaming chop he dried to bring down on her before he even began moving. She flung herself at Zuko, feeling her hair bursting out from the arrangement that those fifteen servants had spent so long constructing. Oh well.

She was too busy planting a kiss on Zuko's lips to worry about it, even if she were the type to worry about the efforts of servants.

He tried to pull away from her, but Mai grabbed his robe and held on, keeping her lips pressed against his and working to draw that oh so familiar response from him. He moaned or groaned and tried to push her away, but she pulled him closer and kept the macking up, and soon felt him melting in against her and beginning to return the kiss.

She felt the rain come to a stop as Zuko raised his arms to embrace her, and she opened her eyes just a crack to see that the sun had emerged from behind a cloud to shine down on them.

The light had returned.

Ha, true love did conquer all, or something! She'd be sure _never_ to mention this to Ty Lee.

But then she realized the burning sensation growing in her heart wasn't the good kind of burning she felt whenever Zuko managed to work up the courage to put his hands on her bum, that the burning was rather unpleasant, and starting to become overwhelming, and now that she thought about, why did she want to marry this loser anyway? This running away from their wedding was just another in a long sequence of incidents where he chose to hide from her rather than discussing what he was really feeling. He never wanted to share anything with her, never mind the rest of his life. He didn't even tell her that he was being influenced by a malicious spirit into trying to kill her! She had to figure that out for herself!

What a jerk!

Mai yanked away and shoved Zuko to the ground. The rain came back, even heavier than before, and Mai luxuriated in the way the water soaked through her clothes to chill her skin and bones and make her shiver like a true lover.

She laughed, something deeper and more powerful than that pathetic dry giggle that made people think she was choking, and shook her unbound hair in the rain. "On second thought, maybe we should rethink this whole marriage thing. At least until you learn to be honest with me."

Then she stepped into a shadow and left Zuko behind.

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	4. Distance

**Distance**

Zuko had just lost the love of his life, had watched her walk away from him and disappear through some kind of weird Shadow Dimension.

That was an awful thing to have to experience on his wedding day.

He shuddered against the frigid rain pouring down on him and tried to sort through his thoughts. He remembered the nightmare he had last night, about Mai being scarred (both literally and metaphorically) by having invested her concern in him. He remembered being shocked (just metaphorically; Azula had thankfully not chosen put in an appearance) when he arrived at the Great Temple for his wedding and found himself in a room that perfectly matched his dream. Things got a little weird after that; he recalled thinking that fleeing his own wedding was a good idea at the time, but that made no sense, because he had already become a fugitive a few times and the only thing that ever accomplished was to get Azula hunting him down. The last thing he would ever want was his little sister shocking him literally _and_ metaphorically on his wedding day.

And Mai - practical, smart, beautiful Mai - came after him. But Zuko had attacked her for reasons that probably weren't really reasons at all. They were imposter reasons (the worst kind!), created by whatever malicious entity had given the spooky laugh and possessed Mai when she kissed him.

And now Mai was gone.

Zuko breathed in and out, stoking the fires in his heart and letting his inner heat chase away the chill of the rain. He could work with this. True, he had no idea where Mai was or how he was going to free her from whatever it was that had her, but he had been even less prepared for hunting down the Avatar when he had started on that quest, and it had turned out really well. Doing the impossible was all just a matter of decreasing the distance between himself and whoever he needed to find, and then not dying during any of the ensuing drama. Fairly simple, at a high level.

So where should he start looking for Mai?

His first thought was her Aunt Mura's place, the little flower shop and attached house that had become the family headquarters after the whole business with Mai's father becoming a domestic terrorist and turning his home into a rebel armory. But no, the coming and going of the rain seemed tied to the spirit's strength at any given moment, so Zuko couldn't imagine it would want to surround itself with freshly-cut floral arrangements for the next confrontation. Would Mai go back to the Great Temple, to sabotage the wedding? No, she liked to be alone when she was upset, and the Great Temple probably had a population comparable to Ba Sing Se right now.

That got him thinking. When he and Mai were little, the only times he'd really get a chance to spend time alone with her were after Azula had done something to especially upset her. Mai would go missing, responding to the need to cry by hiding herself away, and Mom would have to organize the servants in a manhunt to find her.

Except Zuko had figured out where Mai would hide. He hadn't really expected to find her, but during one such manhunt, he went up to the top floor of the palace's tower, to the balcony that had a view of the entire Caldera, and heard a sniffling that alerted him to the sad little girl crouched on the dragon statue just above the balcony like a depressed raven-hawk. Zuko had wondered if he should say something or pretend he hadn't heard her sniffling, hadn't heard the sound of little teardrops pattering on obsidian, hadn't heard her blow her nose with a honk that echoed in the air. Eventually, he said, "You can stay there as long as you like. I'll be here when you're ready to come down," and then just waited silently for an hour until she finally tried to climb off the statue and wound up falling on his head.

He never revealed her hiding space, after that, and whenever she went missing, he'd just go up to the top of the palace and wait until she was feeling better to bring her back to her friends. Sometimes, they'd even get the chance to talk, her quiet voice drifting down from the dragon statue in small, hesitant sentences.

He had understood, even as a kid, the need for distance at times.

Zuko shook the rain out of his hair, pulled up his hooded cloak, and began running. He ran all the way out of Harbor City, all the way up to the Caldera. He had to slow to a jog through the streets of the Capital City, dodging people celebrating the wedding that wasn't really happening, until he came to the palace. The empty corridors echoed with his steps, the skeleton crew of servants apparently busy elsewhere, allowing him to tear through his own home like a komodo-rhino with its tail on fire.

He collapsed on the top-floor balcony, trying to remember how to breathe, when he finally realized that it might have been a good idea to make a brief stop at the Great Temple and recruit the Avatar for dealing with the matter of Mai being possessed by an evil spirit. Maybe he'd win some romantic points for being too distracted to be smart about it?

But a harsh voice drifted down from the dragon statue above the balcony: "You look like fish, lying there in a puddle and gasping like that."

* * *

Mai could hardly believe Zuko's rudeness. She had teleported to the top of the palace specifically to get away from him, and not only had he arrived to intrude on her brooding about how much she hated him, now he wasn't even telling her why he was heaving and panting like he had run all the way here. He never told her anything!

It had always been the same. He didn't tell her about the assassins who tried to kill him, the wars that were almost ignited by the glowing embers of past wrongs, the personal pain he had to bear in order to live by his stupid code of honor, or even the love he had for her that made him cry himself to sleep every night while they were broken up. She understood the natural inclination not to share, not to make hurts worse by putting them into words, not to show the world a vulnerability that could be used to manipulate you for fear of more pain. She had changed when Zuko was banished, when she saw what happened to people who cared too much, and afterward she never had an emotion she hadn't been inclined to immediately swallow.

But when Zuko came back, she fought that inclination for him. She actually smiled where people could see her, so that he and everyone would know how he made her feel. She spent all her time with him, even though it gave him the power to make her every living moment into agony. She even eventually said that she loved him, which was like prancing naked onto a battlefield and giving your opponent the first shot! She even came back to him after he hurt her with lies and secrets, time and again.

And now he had the nerve to chase her down the top of the palace and not even say why!

"I just don't understand this emotional distance you want to put between us," she said as she hopped down from her favorite dragon statue to land with a splash on the balcony's puddle-spotted platform. She produced a knife from her sleeve and stood over Zuko.

He was still lying there, panting. He tried to say something, but he was still too out of breath. Typical. He could never talk to her.

She decided that it would hurt less if he couldn't talk at all. She reached down, grabbed his hair, yanked back to expose his neck, and brought the edge of the knife close to his skin-

" _Stop,_ " Ursa's voice rang out across the balcony. Mai turned, startled, to see Zuko's mother stepping out into the rain. "I don't know what kind of lover's games you two playing, but you should really get married first."

It was such an odd thing to say that Mai was frozen with confusion long enough for Zuko to yank the knife out of her hands.

* * *

Surely, the only thing more embarrassing than having your mother walk in on your possessed-lover trying to slit your throat at the bidding of a malicious spirit was having that exact thing happen only for your mother to think it was all part of some kind of weird love-making.

Zuko decided, though, that he could be properly embarrassed _after_ he got the knife away from his throat. He yanked the weapon out of Mai's hands and swept his leg backwards to carefully knock his beloved off of her feet.

He panted for more air as he pushed himself back to his feet, but Mai was quicker, flipping back up in a move that whipped her hair through the air and it was kind of distracting how good she looked all soaked and primal like this. Even more distracting was the pair of knives she pulled from her sleeves and lifted to throw.  
That's when Mom stepped in between them with wide arms. "I'm not going to let the two of you fight like this on your wedding day!"

"You're no fighter, Ursa." Mai twirled the knives in her hands, licking the rainwater from her lips. "And Zuko and I aren't playing pretend. I hate to break it to you, but your son is the least lovable man alive. He'll die alone unless I take care of things right now."

Zuko tried to get out from behind Mom, but she moved to block him, keeping her arms outstretched and her eyes on Mai. "I know it was real, dear, but what I said certainly diverted you, didn't it? You've always gotten flustered at crass words."

That didn't make sense to Zuko; Mai loved dirty jokes. To back him up, she snorted and said, "I've got some crass words for you right here, you ash-licking-"

"I was talking to Noriko," Mom interrupted. "Not Mai. I know that Mai enjoys using language that would give her mother a heart-attack."

Wait, what?

Mai had gone still. "What did you say?"

Mom nodded. "I name you, Noriko. I name you and command you to be gone. Get out of my honor-daughter."

When Mai replied, it was with a voice that would have sounded more natural coming from a whole pack of hyena-bears: "SHE'S NOT YOUR HONOR-DAUGHTER YET, PRECURSOR. IF YOU WANT HER SO MUCH, COME AND GET HER."

Then Mai flung herself over the rail of the balcony just as the rain finally started to let up.

Zuko didn't even think about it; he jumped to follow her before she had even begun to accelerate.

Then they were both falling.

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	5. Forgiveness

**Forgiveness**

The following represents the thoughts that passed through Zuko's mind over the course of the five and a half seconds he spent falling from the top of his palace to the cold, unforgiving ground in pursuit of the gloomy love of his less-gloomy life:

 _Mai!_

 _Mai!_

 _Mai!_

 _Falling!_

 _We're falling!_

 _Down!_

 _Weird seeing the courtyard from this angle._

 _Gotta catch-_

 _-reach-_

 _-almost-_

 _-got her!_

 _Mai!_

 _Mai! Mai! Mai! Mai! Mai! Mai! Mai!_

 _I got you! I love you! I got you and I love and – we're both still falling, aren't we? From this distance, I expect that we will not survive the landing._

 _Maybe-_

 _If I land first and she lands on top of me-_

 _No._

 _My body isn't enough to protect her from this._

 _And even if it did work, she'll be covered in liquidy bits of me and she hates getting messy._

 _Why didn't I get Aang, the only flying friend I have, when I had the chance? Because I'm an idiot, that's why! Everything everyone has said about my intelligence is true! I never think things through! Uncle was right! Zhao was right! Azula-_

 _Azula-_

 _Azula!_

 _Azula flew!_

 _Even before the comet, she could zoom around with sustained Firebending from her feet!_

 _It wasn't flying, but-_

 _I regret focusing so much on the fundamentals. Departed Uncle, I love and honor you, but breathing exercises are not going to save me here._

 _Still, I have to try._

 _Start by breathing - okay, I'm sorry, Uncle, it's useful._

 _Angling my body, make myself straight in the wind like Aang-_

 _Hold Mai close and she seems so frail with her wet clothes sticking to her like this. I'm wet, too, and that's not going to do my Firebending any good but if I time this right-_

 _\- here comes the ground-_

 _-kick-_

 _-flame-_

 _-breathing-_

 _-power-_

 _Do it for Mai!_

 _-and-_

 _OW!_

 _OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!_

 _Ow!_

 _But still alive!_

 _Sacred flying ash it worked it worked it worked it worked it worked! Ow my ankles hurt but it worked! Thank you, Azula! I love you even though I hate you! Ohhhh, wow, it worked!_

 _Is Mai- yes! She's alive! We're both alive! I love her! I love her so much! I love her so much I want to marry her and give her everything she asks for! But we were already going to do that, weren't we? It was this spirit-_

 _Mom called it 'Norkiko.'_

 _But didn't Mom used to be Noriko?_

Despite these thoughts, the only sounds Zuko made throughout the entire drop were a gasp, some heavy breathing, a pained grunt, and a relieved sigh.

And that's how you get a reputation for a tough mystique, despite being an utter dork in your head.

* * *

Mai woke up to find Zuko hugging her half to death, which was kind of pleasant in an annoying way. She looked around to find the Fire Palace right behind them, which was odd, because why would the palace be in the factory district where Zuko used to like to meet with his assassins? But no, they had left that work-yard, hadn't they? And gone to the balcony at the top of the palace? And now they were down on the ground?

Trouble always involved so much running around.

Mai pushed Zuko away just enough to regain the ability to breath. "I'm guessing my whole plan to kiss the evil spirits away didn't work out very well?"

He laughed in his normal fashion, a quick burst of 'ha' that seemed to relieve the internal pressure of his body at the same time it expressed his amusement. Her stomach did a little flip at the sound as he said, "There was some trouble, but it seems to be all right, after all. We had to take the quick way down from the balcony, but you're safe now. We're okay. The rain has stopped and we're okay."

Mai let herself relax in his arms. "I like okay." She leaned forward to press her lips against his-

"I'm sorry, children," came Ursa's voice, "but I'm afraid this is just a temporary reprieve."

Mai felt herself go stiff at the new arrival. Great, now on top of weird spirits, she had to deal with weird honor-mothers. At what point did Mai sign up for this level of weirdness? She was the quasi-legitimate daughter of a pair of boring nobles of the Fire Nation, not a foundling that grew up a Phoenix nest or something fanciful like that. The worst Mai should be dealing with were poisoned dinner parties and the occasional fanatical assassin! The easy stuff!

Sure, there was Zuko being banished just when Mai was just starting to like dirty jokes, and all that business with Avatars and stuff, and Comet-powered battles with insane siblings that wound up with Zuko running a country. But she was just a teenager back then! She could hardly be expected to extrapolate the ongoing weirdness that would be Zuko's life just because he could tell stories about meeting dragons!

Right?

Zuko, meanwhile, was no help whatsoever. He beamed up at his weird mother and pointed to Mai. "Mom, look, I saved her!"

Ursa's expression immediately shifted from Worry to Doting. "Yes, honey, I saw. You did a great job!" Oh, for First Fire's sake, mothers and sons were the same no matter how old they got. Then Ursa looked directly at Mai. "Are you sure you're okay? Do you remember what happened?"

In an instant, Mai was on her feet. The move was so quick that she wound up with her sopping wet hair flopping into her face, but she didn't want to waste a good righteous fury, so she made like Toph and pointed an accusing finger towards her best guess at the location of her honor-mother's stupid face. "Noriko!"

Zuko stood up and said, "Mai-"

Mai didn't let it stop her. She whipped her hair around to smack her fiancé in the face and glared at Ursa. "You called the thing Noriko. That's you. Or was you, I mean. _I don't know what I mean because it's all crazy!_ Whatever, all this is your fault. You made a deal with an Elder Spirit that you later changed your mind about, and now the remnants of that deal are flying around possessing people and making me think Zuko ran away from our wedding and forcing me to try to cut his throat and he jumped off a balcony to save me and _I hate you so much!_ " She had to blink back tears so that she didn't ruin this nice tantrum with vulnerable emotions. She could feel the bitter aftertaste of the dark thoughts the spirit put in her head, of the mistrust for Zuko that she had been forced to feel.

The mistrust that Mai had worked so hard to bury deep in her heart.

Zuko started to say something, but Mai didn't want to hear it. She cut him off again by pointing at his mother again. "Why couldn't you just stay dead? Why did you have to be found and ruin everything we wanted to think about you? Now you're just a pathetic keepsake who makes everyone sad and brings evil spirits down to hurt your son! Why can't you just let Zuko move on and love me! Why can't you just do the right thing and d-"

Zuko laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, freezing the word in her mouth. He shook his head at her. "Mai, that's my mother you're talking to. Please stop."

She didn't know what to say to that, so she just nodded.

Ursa, for her part, bowed her head. "You're right. This is my fault. I made poor choices, more than you even realize, and now you - all of my children have to pay for them. I didn't even realize what was going on until it was too late, until I got up there and felt her presence and- and saw that knife in your-" Her voice hitched. "I'm sorry. You deserve better than this. Than me."

Well, ash. Mai wasn't quite sure what to do with an apology. The Avatar and that whole crew were big on them, but she preferred to handle things the way she was raised to, by letting disagreements descend into shouting matches that finally ended with some form of violence. She was sure she could take Ursa, either in an Honor Duel or a no-rules brawl, and it was okay to hurt people when they were trying to hurt you back. This whole business with 'apologies' just made Mai feel bad for being a jerk, and she hated even realizing she was a jerk.

Zuko stepped in at that point, drawing his mother into a hug. "You don't need to apologize. All of this is Father and Grandfather's fault. They're the ones who hurt us. You didn't want to hurt anyone, ever. I know you tried to do what was right for everyone else. Uncle had to teach me that things could go bad anyway, and the honorable thing to do is to try to fix them. To learn and to do better. And that's what you've been doing. It's why I love you so much. And why Mai will love you, too."

"This is better?" Ursa gave a laugh and sagged in Zuko's arms. "Noriko wasn't just a new name and appearance. She was real, or real enough to count. The Mother of Faces didn't just create a new name and face. Noriko was a full person. She had memories. A personality. Opinions that had nothing to do with mine. When I came back, I killed her. I took my body back and left her adrift. Without her family. Without anything. She's just doing what I should have - fighting for what has been taken from her!"

Mai surprised herself by saying, "That's garbage."

Zuko and Ursa looked at her.

She hated the look in their eyes, that hopeful warmth that was so foreign to her, so she shifted her head so that her unbound hair fell like a shield to block the sight. "That stupid spirit is not fighting for her family. She's trying to destroy yours because she's a jerk. She's just lashing out to hurt you, striking at the son who brought back on what was _supposed to be_ the happiest day of our lives. And if she succeeds in hurting you by hurting Zuko, she hurts all the people who care about you, like Kiyi. Kiyi is her daughter as much as yours." She thought about that for another moment. "I guess. I don't know how it works; it's weird and that's why I hide my real self around you. But Noriko is just going to wind up hurting Kiyi if she gets her way. If she were really doing this for love, she'd be sacrificing herself to make things better. That's how love works. It only has value if you're willing to bleed for it."

Zuko's hand brushed her hair out of the way, revealing his smiling face. "You're such a romantic."

Mai felt her face heating up. "No, I'm melodramatic. There's a difference. A romantic would have let you die at the Boiling Rock and then pined away or something stupid like that."

Zuko grinned. "Saying 'I love Zuko more than I fear you' to Azula does sound melodramatic."

Ursa's jaw dropped. "You said that? Why don't I get to see this melodramatic side of you more often?"

"Because I'm a jerk when I'm melodramatic." Mai let her hair hide her blush. "I try to be nice around people Zuko likes."

"You can be nice and yourself at the same time." Zuko lost his smile, and gave her a Look. "And I think you have something else to add."

No fair. Who taught Zuko how to Look?

He let go of Ursa and put his hands on Mai's shoulders. "You and Mom are more alike than you want to admit. Every time you've lost me, you try to make yourself harder, and that's led you to do things I know you regret. When Mom lost me, she retreated because she thought it would be better for me, even if she regrets some of what that led to. Neither of those choices is better than the other. We all make mistakes. We're all weird. And it's not fair of you to say my mother doesn't belong in my life."

Mai sighed and shook herself free of Zuko's grip. She hated when he made sense in a way that made her feel bad. Looked her honor-mother in the eyes, she said, "Sorry for yelling at you about your ghost thing. It's my wedding day and I get to be cranky, but I shouldn't have said what I did."

Ursa gave a tentative nod. "I forgive you. And I'm sorry about my - uh, ghost thing."

"I-" Mai sighed again. "I forgive you. But can you just answer one question?" She saw Zuko stiffen at the edge of her vision, but he didn't try to stop her.

Ursa's eyes grew wary. "I suppose."

"How did you know we'd be up on the balcony? Can you sense the ghost? Did you know its plans?"

Ursa smiled. "I remembered that you used to hide up there when you'd get upset. You seemed upset at the Temple, so I thought I'd come take a look to see if everything was okay. I didn't know about Noriko until I got up there and felt her spirit within you."

"Wait," Zuko said, "you knew about Mai's hiding place? Then why the elaborate hunts when we were kids?"

"To give you time to go to her and make her feel better, of course." Ursa drew herself up with some of the pride that Mai remembered seeing her display as a true Princess of the Fire Nation. "I might have made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I'm not blind, honey. Moms are always sneaker than their sons realize. She had it bad for you, and you thought her shiny hair was just _fascinating,_ so when she was upset I let you two have a moment alone."

Mai could only laugh at Zuko's dumbfounded reaction.

Ursa earned bonus points by not asking if Mai was choking.

It was almost possible to forget that a murderous supernatural entity was still active, but that's when the rain started again. Before, it had been a frigid downpour, but now it came back with more fury than Mai would have ever thought possible for weather to have. The raindrops were as thick as fists, and were being driven by winds as fast as a charging rhino. Lightning flashed and thunder made the very ground shudder.

Mai was blasted off her feet by the onset of the storm, but Zuko was soon at her side, adding his strength to hers to stand against the hurricane.

Aunti Mura was right.

Rain on your wedding was bad luck.

 **TO BE CONTINUED**


	6. Steel

**Steel**

It took all of Zuko's strength to merely stay standing in the palace courtyard against the supernatural storm. In one arm he held Mai, her shivering making his heart clench, and in the other he held his mom, her frailness still dismaying him after all the years she loomed large and strong in his memories. The rain was coming down so hard and fast that Zuko could almost believe that he had fallen into a river. The winds hammered at their bodies with the fury he used to hold for the world. Lightning bolts seared his vision and thunder exploded, making reality black out a moment at a time.

This was why Zuko generally tried to avoid spirits. Vengeful nobles were relatively easy to handle. Spirits always took things personally, and they had a completely disproportionate sense of vengeance.

Well, the first step to dealing with spirits was survival. Zuko pulled his favorite women along with him as he made his way back to the relative safety of the palace.

But lightning struck again, this time close enough to knock Zuko to his knees, and when his senses returned, he could make out the scorched, blasted, collapsed palace entrance. Unless he was going to spend hours digging, or try to climb the tower to an upper-story balcony in this weather, the palace was cut off.

Fine.

He'd just go to the Great Temple and get the Avatar to do start glowing and issuing strongly-worded condemnations in than echoing voice. Let Noriko deal with that!

Still clutching Mom and Mai, Zuko fought the wind and rain all the way out of the courtyard, into the wide streets of Capital City. He stopped for a moment to orient himself, but just when he picked out the street he needed to take, he became aware of a roaring - something that rumbled even above the clamor of the hurricane - that was growing steadily louder.

Zuko shut his eyes and sighed against the rage of the storm. What now?

He opened his eyes again just in time to see the flash flood surging through the streets straight for him.

Okay, this just wasn't playing fair.

Then the floodwaters overtook him and swept him away.

* * *

There were many life experiences that Mai regretted, from hearing the news of Zuko's scarring and banishment to the time she let Ty Lee talk her into stealing Fire Lord Ozai's personal komodo rhino for a joyride. Among those experiences were her many defeats at the hands (or rather, tail) of her own personal nemesis, the one opponent she had never been able to defeat in combat: Appa the sky bison. And the most ignominious of those defeats had been the time when the massive fluff-monster had blasted her and Ty Lee into a river to be swept downstream and subsequently try to find a way to dry their underwear without the convenience of a Firebender.

She supposed that, given the way the rest of her wedding day had gone, it was only appropriate that she would have to relive that particular experience today.

The flash flood swept her, Zuko, and Ursa off their feet and left them spinning as they were carried through the streets of Capital City. Mai fought the urge to panic as her head dipped below the foaming surface of the rapids, and she kept a death grip on Zuko and Ursa to avoid being pulled down completely.

If she had known she was going to be going swimming today, she wouldn't have loaded up with so many knives.

On the other hand, maybe it was time to do a little of that 'positive energy' garbage everyone was always going on about and turn her rotten luck into an opportunity.

Still holding Zuko and Ursa, Mai threw her body into a dive that carried her straight down through the water to the surface of the street. She sank easily with her metal-enhanced weight, and even managed to get a little friction going between her boots and the ground when she touched bottom. There was nothing to see down here, with the storm's lack of the light and the water's filthy lack of clarity, but that was fine.

Mai wasn't planning on staying down here, anyway.

It was too wet, for one thing.

Instead, she kicked against the street surface, launching herself back into the flow of the floodwaters, but rather than traveling with the current now, she was moving perpendicular to it, spinning towards the side of the street and the buildings that stood there. She wasn't aiming for any particular building, since she couldn't see, just something that would prop her up against the current and maybe not collapse on her, thanks.

She didn't know how much time and drifting it took until she slammed into the railing of a porch, but Zuko and Ursa were starting to panic from lack of oxygen by that point, so she brought her little underwater adventure to an end. She climbed a pole on the railing back to the surface, and dragged her honor-family up with her.

Once Ursa and Zuko were done choking and gasping, Mai said, "Zuko, for my wedding present, I want you to fund some proper drainage for this stupid city."

Ursa, at least, had the decency to give a laugh at that.

Maybe Mai could get along with this woman after all.

* * *

Zuko knew he was no tactical genius, but he was starting to think that his first priority should be to come in out of the rain.

He could only be glad that Azula wasn't around to congratulate him on his conclusion.

Fortunately, Zuko was one of the first Fire Lords in four generations to have experience both scaling walls with nothing but his hands and breaking-and-entering into highly secure facilities (Fire Lord Lu Pei was remembered by history as a bit eccentric), so while the hurricane made this the least enjoyable home invasion of his criminal career, it wasn't long before he had climbed up to a rooftop with Mai and Mom. Then it was just a matter of stumbling from rooftop to rooftop until they found one with the lights on, and swinging down through a window for an embarrassingly dramatic entrance.

And so Zuko found himself tumbling into what appeared to be a large dining room and the remnants of a party. People in wet, muddy festival outfits stood around and looked at him rudely until he slicked his hair out of his face and revealed his scar.

He supposed that was one good thing about half of his face resembling bacon: he was one of the most recognizable people in the Caldera.

"Fire Lord Zuko," a man in what seemed to be the remnants of a dragon costume said, "what are you doing here? We thought you were getting married?"

Mai whipped her own hair out of her face, spraying water everywhere. "We called the wedding off for rain. Anyone want to make trouble over it?"

That's when half the guests suddenly stood up straighter and said in simultaneous scary voices, "I DO."

Oh, right. The murderous spirit of his mother's old fake identity. Zuko had almost forgotten about that, what with nearly drowning to death. Wait, was it possible to drown without dying? Something told him not to ask the murderous spirit.

Once again, Mom ran forward to put her body between Zuko and the threat, but this time she included Mai in her protected area. "Noriko, I will not let you harm my children. You'll have to destroy me before you can so much as touch a hair on their heads."

"THAT CAN BE ARRANGED." As the non-possessed people ran clear of the confrontation, the ones with the creepy fixed gazes all intoned, "I WANTED YOU TO SUFFER BEFORE I TOOK MY REVENGE, BUT DYING KNOWING THAT THERE'S NOTHING MORE YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THEM SHOULD BE ADEQUATE PUNISHMENT, I THINK. YOU HAVE ENOUGH IMAGINATION TO FORETELL THE KINDS OF PAIN I WILL MAKE THEM EXPERIENCE."

Mai pulled a pair of razor discs from her belt and moved up to stand beside Mom. "Maybe you're not intimidated by Ursa, but I'm exactly enough of a jerk to put blades in the eyes of your little pawns. Want to try me?"

"No, Mai," Mom said, "that won't stop her. You need to run!"

"Like ash I'm leaving you to-"

" _We're_ not leaving," Zuko interrupted, spotting something amongst the cowering guests that gave him an idea. He loved getting ideas, and it was a shame it didn't happen more often for him, but he had a good feeling about this one. "But neither are we hurting my innocent subjects. Just continuing making your last stand. I'll be right back." He ran out from behind Mom, dodged around a possessed man who tried to grab for him, and threw himself into a combat roll that brought him up beside an old woman in a distinctive headdress with monkey-serpent motif. "I am your Fire Lord. Are you a spirit-talker?"

The old woman blinked, and then gave a little bow. "Oh, hello, now. Madame Changchang, fortuneteller at your service. Congratulations on your-"

"Can you seal spirits?"

"Oh, well now, usually I don't have to do more than yell at Miss Zhu in my home village when she starts casting curses on her neighbors again, and-"

"A wedding," Mom called out. Zuko turned and saw her actually smiling even as she shoved possessed attackers away. "A wedding is a kind of seal! A seal of love! And since Noriko has already touched your love with her power-"

Zuko immediately looked back to Madame Changchang. "I need you to marry me and my fiancé right here and right now."

"You mean you're still not married?" The old woman blinked again, and then grinned. "Well, all right, then. This is going to make me famous! Now, um, which of those two ladies are you marrying, then, just for reference?"

Zuko picked Madame Changchang up, and a dash, jump, flying kick, desperate dodge, a weak wave of fire (he was still all wet), and a backflip later, he was back behind this safety of his mommy. He set the old woman down next to Mai and then pointed to her. "I'm marrying this one."

Changchang uncrossed her eyes, and then her grin came back even stronger. "Ooh, you go for the thin, drowned squirrel-rat, types, eh? Hot. But, um, I'm presuming you want this quick, then? Hm, then doing it all fancy is right out, it's not exactly proper weather for a sun wedding, you know, and- well, a Steel Wedding is the quickest, but where are we going to get knives to which each of you have a strong emotional attachment on such short notice?"

Zuko pulled his prized Earth Kingdom dagger from his belt, the one given to him by his Departed Uncle so many years ago. Beside him, Mai was emptying knife after knife from her own hiding places and accumulating quite a pile on the floor.

Changchang laughed. "Wow, I _like_ you two! Okay, then, Steel Wedding it is. Let's do this thing! "

* * *

To the chorus of inhuman growling and Ursa's battle cries, Mai proceeded to rush through her marriage to the love of her life.

"Fire Lord, wet your blade with this young lady's blood," Madame Changchang said. "Whatever Your Name Is, pick a knife you like to cuddle and use it to give the Fire Lord a cut, there's a good girl."

She held out a hand, and Zuko ran his dagger's blade across her palm. Pain spread across it with a cold sting, followed by the warm sensation of he own blood pooling. Gross, but kind of romantic, in a twisted way.

Then Zuko gave her his hand, and she picked out Old Lucky to cut him in the exact same way. A quick slice later, Old Lucky had her beloved's blood on the cutting edge.

"Right, that's the fun part, then," Changchang continued. "Now trade knives. And don't give 'em back, ever, because that's how you divorce each other, and maybe it's a bit late to mention it now but that might actually kill one of you due to a curse that was never resolved on Steel Weddings, hence why they fell out of favor, but we'll worry about that tomorrow, then? Oh, and say a few nice words, this is your wedding, as quick and nasty as it is."

She and Zuko turned to each other. He held out the Earth Kingdom dagger, and she took it in her bloodied hand. "Mai, this was given to me by the man who was like a Father to me, the man who saved me. The inscription says to never give up without a fight, and I know you never will. You've already fought the worst there is for me and refused to back down. Take the blade with my love. And I'm sorry you're getting such a messy wedding. I know you hate bleeding as much as you hate sweating."

Aw, he had to go and be so romantic no matter the circumstances. She felt distinctly less graceful as she handed over Old Lucky. "I have more knives than I've counted, and I won't miss this one, but think of it as the symbol of all my weapons and everything I am. Every time I lose you, I get - well, if you don't mind me getting symbolic - I get sharper. And I'll use that sharpness now to protect our love and our marriage. Now, and forever."

Zuko's goofy smile made her heart melt. "See, you _are_ a romantic."

"Shut up." She felt herself smiling the same way. Yeah, she couldn't deny it forever.

"Great," Madame Changchang laughed, "you two are the biggest dorks I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Gives me hope for our nation, then. All right, now bring the blades of the knives together hard enough to chip them. That bonds the metal, see."

Mai moved with all the Qi in her body and all the swiftness of the wind. Her blade struck Zuko's equally fast attack with enough force to make sparks fly, and when Mai looked at the inscribed blade again, there was a chip right at the center.

"Right, now just cut each other again and you'll be good to go." As Mai and Zuko sliced each other's other palms, mixing their blood, Changchang shouted, "We got ourselves a wife and a hubby, here! Go ahead and get with the smoochies, kids!"

Mai didn't need to be invited twice. She pulled her wet hair up, wrapped it around her new, bloody knife to tie it up out of the way, and then launched her lips at Zuko's. He threw his arms around her and held her tight against his body as he returned the kiss with all due enthusiasm, their clothes squelching between them.

As Mai and her husband Zuko started their marriage with a kiss, she heard a scream from somewhere beyond the walls of reality that started with a tone like a pack of hyena-bears, shriveled down to that of a single old woman wailing in grief, and then faded to the echo of a memory that didn't exist.

Then it was just Mai and Zuko.

Mai and Zuko, forever.

 **TO BE CONCLUDED**


	7. Legacy

**Legacy**

"And that worked?!"

Her daughter's squeak knocked the memory of Mai's first kiss as a married woman right out of her mind's eye. She looked down where Izumi squirming in her lap. "Madame Changchang pronounced us married, we kissed, and all the craziness stopped. The possessed attackers stopped trying to kick your Grammy in the teeth, the storm stopped trying to drown the capital, and your father and I didn't try to kill each other again for the whole rest of the day. Seems like it worked to me, but if you're being haunted at night-"

Izumi wrinkled her nose. "No, not that. The monster under my bed is different. I don't get what marrying Daddy has to do with ghosts."

Mai silently requested any listening spirits or dragons or whatever to spare her from overly-analytical six-year-olds. "Noriko had possessed both your father and I, and drew her strength from the conflict she created between us. That's why she started with dreams and twisted thoughts before progressing to hurricanes. She was feeding on her own actions."

At Izumi's confused blink, Mai amended, "She got stronger by turning our love into fighting. Your Grammy had already denied her and commanded her to leave - which I guess was a thing she could do because she used to be Noriko, or something - but as long as there was still a separation between me and Daddy, her energy couldn't dissipate. By sealing our love, we removed what was giving her substance."

Izumi looked up with all-too-mature eyes that Mai found uncomfortably familiar. "Mommy, that's really dumb."

Good thing Mai had a strategy ready for confrontations like this. "Well, that's how Grammy and Uncle Aang explained it to me. I think the next time you see one of them, you should tell them that it's dumb and give them all the details why. Write everything down, if you need to. They'll be very impressed by your analysis."

Izumi nodded like a good, dutiful child. "I will." Apparently satisfied that her concerns would be addressed, she relaxed again and smiled. "So then did you and Daddy kiss some more?"

Mai grinned back at her daughter, the kind of grin that was all teeth. "Lots more. But after that, there's one more part that you'll probably like." She was very, very tempted to gross Izumi out with a high-level description of the honeymoon, but instead continued her story with, "It wasn't until later at the palace that all our family and friends found out that they missed the real wedding..."

* * *

"I missed the real wedding," Tom-Tom wailed. Then he burst into tears, threw himself at Mai's stomach, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

Mai looked to Mother to take care of the situation, but found that she, too, had started crying. Mai was taken aback by that, as Mother never cried. She reached out a hand and tried to pat Mother on a shoulder. "There, there?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Mai." Mother sniffled loudly and wiped at her tears. "I was just horrified that you got married looking like a drowned squirrel-rat. After all the effort I've put into raising you with beautiful, shining hair, you experienced one of the most important moments of your life with a twig behind your ear. I just feel like a failure."

Mai reached up and found that the twig was still there. She pulled it out and threw it away. "There, there?"

Mother's sobbing just got louder, but Auntie Mura came over and guided her away with an apologetic smile. Mai nodded her gratitude, and couldn't stop from smiling when Auntie whispered, "Congratulations! Marriage is always beautiful, even when it's messy."

Marriage. Mai was married now. She was a _wife._ Zuko's wife.

Huh.

Uncle came over at that point, his face as blank as Mai's usually was. "Can I see the knife?"

Mai reached around her bawling little brother and retrieved the Earth Kingdom dagger from her belt. The chip in the blade was easily visible in the bright lanterns of the palace, and the whole weapon was still crusted and sticky with Mai and Zuko's blood.

Uncle took the dagger and looked it over. "It's a fine blade. I guess Zuko will make a decent husband, after all."

"Thank you, Uncle. I don't suppose you'd like to make a wedding gift out of prying a little boy off my waist?"

He immediately took a step back. "I'm not good with kids, you know that."

"Are you kidding? You were always my favorite relative, even when I was little."

"Yes, but _you_ didn't cry or get snot on things. You either hid or tried to stab people with chopsticks. Why do you think you were always my favorite little girl?" He walked away in the same direction that Auntie had led Mother, hopefully to assist with that situation.

Which left Mai still with Tom-Tom crying and sniffling all over her clothes. She looked to where Ty Lee was standing and brought her hands together. "You could get him off of me with your Qi-blocking. In return, I could promise to take you with me on my next adventure?"

Ty Lee gave a lazy, very artificial shrug. "Oh, I don't know, it sounds like you do fine when you run off on your own. I didn't even have to come find your body. Besides, I vowed to never again use my powers on children. Not after that one time."

"Traitor."

"Yep."

"You're going to make me pay for getting married without you."

"Yep." Ty Lee winked. "But keep your aura _that_ pink, and I might let you off easy. Maybe." She sauntered off towards the table where the soggy leftovers from the faux-wedding party at the Great Temple had been dumped, presumably to see if rainwater enhanced the taste of dumplings.

With a sigh, Mai dragged the wailing Tom-Tom over to the rest of the gathering, where Zuko held a kind of informal at the center, reclining on a sofa and surrounded by his own family and friends. On the way, Mai noticed Kiyi standing at the edge of the group. The preteen didn't seem to be reacting to anything around her, and had that weird thousand-pace stare that she sometimes got.

Mai poked the kid's shoulder, and found that unfocused stare turned on her. "Yes?"

"Kiyi, since you're my Honor-Sister now, I'm afraid you're the only person who can help me with a certain problem."

At the words 'Honor-Sister,' Kiyi's eyes regained their focus, and a hint of expression returned to her face. "Problem?"

Mai nodded, and motioned to Tom-Tom. "He's been made a bit upset by all this talk of vengeful ghosts. He's not as brave as you are. Since he loves being teased mercilessly by older girls he barely knows, do you think could cheer him up for me?"

Kiyi's eyes lit up. "I can give him a big kiss on the nose!"

Tom-Tom immediately stopped his crying. "No!"

Kiyi reached towards him. "Yes! And then I'll tickle you!"

"Nooooo!" Tom-Tom immediately let go of Mai and ran for his life, pursued by Kiyi.

There. Multiple problems solved with one knife. Metaphorically, this time.

With that done, Mai maneuvered her way around Sokka and Suki, past Toph, dodged Katara's wild gesticulations, and ducked under Aang's pointing arm. She smiled at Ursa - seated on the other side of the sofa with both a blanket and Noren's arms around her - and went right up to the side where Zuko was sprawled bonelessly.

He was saying, "No, Aang, I get it, next time I'll tell you about the body-doubles, but I-"

That's when Mai lowered herself into his lap and curled up against him.

"Um," Zuko said.

Mai could feel everyone's stares on her, but she was long past the point of caring how much affection she showed for her husband and who saw it. They all knew what a wedding meant; there was nothing in her heart left to hide, not anymore. Mai's darkness had been revealed to Zuko by the spirit of the mother he never had, and in turn the light had been revealed to defeat that ghost. Mai had put it all out there.

"Keep arguing," she mumbled as she pressed her face into the side of Zuko's neck. She felt the need for sleep overtaking her, and figured there was no more comfortable place in the world. "I'm good here."

And so she was.

The last thing she said before her fell into dreams was, "Weddings are _exhausting._ "

* * *

"Aw," cooed Izumi, as she herself snuggled against Mai with drooping eyes. "You're right, I like that."

 **END**


End file.
